h authority over them, and I
think I've got that. There's no telling what I may do yet. I say, Adela,
bow would it sound--"Richard Mutimer, First President of the English
Republic"?'

And in the meantime Alice sat in her house at Wimbledon, abandoned.
The solitude seemed to be driving her mad. Rodman came down very
occasionally for a few hours in the daytime, but never passed a night
with her. He told her he had a great affair on hand, a very great
affair, which was to make their fortunes ten times over. She must be
patient; women couldn't understand business. If she resisted his coaxing
and grumbled, he always had his threat ready. He would realise his
profits and make off, leaving her in the lurch. Weeks became months.
In pique at the betrayal of her famous stratagem, Alice had wanted to
dismiss her servant, but Rodman objected to this. She was driven by
desperation to swallow her pride and make a companion of the girl. But
she did not complain to her of her husband--partly out of self-respect,
partly because she was afraid to. Indeed it was a terrible time for the
poor Princess. She spent the greater part of every day in a state of
apathy; for the rest she wept. Many a time she was on the point of
writing to Richard, but could not quite bring herself to that. She could
not leave the house, for it rained or snowed day after day; the sun
seemed to have deserted the heavens as completely as joy her life. She
grew feeble-minded, tried to amuse herself with childish games, played
'Beggar My Neighbour' with the servant for hours at night. She had fits
of hysteria, and terrified her sole companion with senseless laughter,
or with alarming screams. Reading she was no longer story. And her
glass--as well as her husband--told her that equal to; after a few pages
she lost her understanding of a she suffered daily in her appearance.
Her hair was falling; she one day told the servant that she would soon
have to buy a wig. Poor Alice! And she had not even the resource of
railing against the social state. What a pity she had never studied that
subject!

So the time went on till February of the new year. Alice's release was
at hand.

CHAPTER XXXIII

'Arry Mutimer, not long after he left his mother's house for good,
by chance met Rodman in the City. Presuming on old acquaintance, he
accosted the man of business with some familiarity; it was a chance of
getting much-needed assistance once more. But Rodman was not disposed